Explainer: The Supreme Court, Fair Use and the Future of Protected Artistic Expression
On October 12, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States heard a copyright case that could reshape the future of the nation’s copyright regime. Renowned photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who captured portraits of the rock star Prince that Andy Warhol later used to create the iconic Prince series, filed the suit. In 1984, Vanity Fair [...]
Interacting with the dead is no longer science fiction. Digital technologies have evolved to the extent that they can be—and are being used—to emulate the dead. During the last five years, media reports recount efforts of people who have tried and developed, with different degrees of success, chatbots based on a deceased person’s digital data: [...]
India competition regulator orders probe against Apple for commission on in-app payments
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) ordered Friday a detailed investigation against Apple over allegations that the commission policies of its App Store are anti-competitive. The order came after an NGO, Together We Fight Society, filed a plea alleging that Apple abused its dominant position in the market in violation of Section 4 of the [...]
Amazon is moving to recuse Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan from any antitrust investigation, adjudication, litigation, or other proceedings related to Amazon. The notion is that Chair Khan has made up her mind, according to Amazon’s motion: Chair Khan has made numerous and highly detailed public pronouncements regarding Amazon, including on market definition, [...]
The European Commission’s Stance on the Recent Spotify-Apple Feud
With the commencement of 2021, antitrust investigations on a global level grew exponentially. The reason being, despite the world grappling with catastrophic COVID-19, surprisingly these enterprises added billions of dollars to their total market capitalization value. The regulatory concern is not with their increased revenue, but with their ignorant attitude and ever-growing dominance, which pose [...]
Legal Educators Have the Power to Cultivate a More Accessible Profession
When I started law school in 2019, I did not believe my professors would play a critical role in supporting me as a disabled law student. I assumed I would receive occasional words of affirmation, and I knew I could ask for extra time on my exams. But as I understood it, my disability was [...]
Yesterday, the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple testified before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in a hearing on “Online Platforms and Market Power.” As Congress takes up the question of market power in the tech sector, the time is ripe to consider the issue in our broader economy. For decades, corporations in a [...]
Reforming Digital Lending Libraries and the End of the Internet Archive
Four US publishers, including three from the big five, have sued the Internet Archive (IA) for mass copyright infringement under its emergency library program (ELP). IA is known for championing Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) through its open library, wherein it lends out e-copies of books it holds physically, maintaining a loaned-to-owned ratio. In response to [...]
When we talk about defunding the police, we focus on what we can see. We imagine hiring fewer cops to flock in subway stations and wander sidewalks. We picture fewer high-priced tanks and military-grade tools of war in our communities. But today’s policing infrastructure also spends millions of dollars on an invisible, sprawling data surveillance [...]
Washington state sues Google and Facebook over political ad disclosures
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed lawsuits on Monday against Google and Facebook for failing to disclose information about who purchased political ads that were displayed on their platforms. Both companies are accused of violating RCW 72.17A, which requires that “political campaign and lobbying contributions and expenditures be fully disclosed to the public and [...]
